At 08:29 AM 12/29/05 -0500, Holly wrote: >Ron writes:
><<I still say Downs is referring to one of many lower altitude areas in >UK - as apposed to the hill sheep regions >> > >But wouldn't the latter then be called "hills sheep" <VBG> > >I suspect the double s in downs sheep and (logically) hills sheep is >being lost--good riddance, I say :) According to my dictionary, "the Downs" is a "treeless chalk uplands along the south and southeast coast of England." It's a specific place name; you would no more say "a Down breed" than you would say "a United State breed". The sheep of the hills have always been "hill sheep", because you use the root when you use a noun as an adjective. For example, you might have a pile of table legs taken from several tables. -- Joy Beeson http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
